The Collection: Level 1

Tomas Georgeson was born in 1980 in Aylesbury. He studied art at The University of Derby and Central St Martins.

He was the winner of the Derby Open competition in 2002 and exhibited his 'Portrait of my Father' at the National Portrait Gallery as part of the 2011 BP Portrait Award.

The Passage, 2009, oil on canvas, Tomas Georgeson

Tomas says 'The Passage' documents a friends very personal and private act of remembrance in which she revisited a place of personal significance from childhood.

Since 2005 Tomas has used paint to document 'performance' in its broadest sense. The central idea of this approach is that painting still remains the best way to capture and preserve a fleeting moment in time for centuries.

Tomas completed a two year residency in North Devon, where he developed a device which allows anyone to draw and paint realistically. Since 2010 he has painted film sets at Pinewood Studios near London, an ongoing series of portraits of the actress Claire Foy and a series documenting his own open heart surgery.

In 2013, hiding a blank cheque for £8000 in Milton Keynes Gallery, he promised that whoever found it could keep it. Tomas said it was done "as something positive in a town eager to establish itself as a cultural destination". No one found it.